Your Brand Needs to Be Understood

Hi everyone, this is Neo.

Continuing my series breaking down the Shenzhen SEO Conference speaker talks.

Today I’m unpacking a talk by Carl J. Borg. The point he made basically turned a lot of what we thought we knew about SEO on its head.

About Carl J. Borg

Before we dig into his ideas, let me quickly introduce this guy so you understand how much weight his words carry.

Carl J. Borg is the founder and digital PR strategist at One AS, a digital PR agency. He’s not some armchair theorist — he’s a serial entrepreneur who’s been in the trenches.

His track record is seriously impressive:

  • Deep media connections: his team regularly lands coverage for clients in world-class outlets like Forbes, BBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post
  • Digital publishing experience: he previously built a portfolio of digital publishing brands reaching 500K monthly active users
  • Startup and investment background: he’s advised multiple startups, helping them reach valuations above 150 million NOK
  • Big-company leadership: he’s led large sales teams at global companies like Nestlé

That mix of hands-on digital marketing, strategic leadership, and startup investing gives him a genuinely deep read on SEO and digital growth. Now he applies all of it to helping clients win in the new AI-driven search landscape.

In plain terms, this is a top-tier expert who knows both the tech and the business side — real experience on top of real theory. So when he says “the rules of the search game have changed,” we should really listen.

Today I want to walk you through the best parts of his deck through my own lens, and talk about how we as independent site sellers should adjust our strategy so we don’t get left behind in the AI search era.

Search Engines Are Dead, Long Live Answer Engines

Let’s start with a painful stat: right now, over 60% of Google searches end without the user clicking a single link.

What does that mean?

A user types a question into the search box, and Google generates an AI answer right at the top of the search results page (AI Overviews). The user reads it, feels satisfied, and leaves — never scrolling down to click your site’s link.

Translation: the “clicks” we’ve built our livelihoods on are slowly losing their power.

Carl nailed it in his talk: the battleground of search has shifted from the traditional “Search Engine” to the “Answer Engine.”

In the past, our SEO goal was to get our site’s links ranking higher and earn clicks. Not anymore. The rules have changed. Our new goal is to make our brand and our content the “first-choice source” AI turns to when generating answers.

In Carl’s words, the new KPI is no longer “clicks” — it’s “Share of Answer.”

Brand Mentions: The Rising New Currency

If clicks matter less, what matters more?

The answer: brand mentions.

Carl’s team’s research found that how often a brand is mentioned across the web correlates with its visibility in AI Overviews at a striking 0.664 — far higher than the 0.218 for traditional backlinks.

That means when AI generates answers, it tends to cite brands that are widely and positively mentioned online.

That leads to another core concept from his talk — “The Authority Iceberg.”

The technical SEO, on-page optimization, and content updates we normally obsess over are just the tip of the iceberg above the waterline. What really determines your site’s authority is the far bigger mass below the surface: true trust and authority, E-E-A-T, third-party validation, media credibility, expert recognition, and social signals.

Carl broke those below-the-surface factors into three actionable directions:

  1. Third-Party Validation & Media Credibility Authority isn’t self-declared — it’s granted by others. When authoritative industry media and well-known blogs cover your brand, their credibility rubs off on you.

    • How? Proactively pursue placements in authoritative “best of” roundups, news articles, and opinion pieces.
    • How to leverage it? Proudly add an “As Featured In” section to your site with those media logos. It massively boosts trust with new visitors.

  2. Expert Recognition Google and AI are both looking for real human experts in every field. You need to turn your company’s founders and technical leads into thought leaders in the industry.

    • How? Use newsjacking — get your key people quoted as experts in major media, contributing opinion pieces or reacting to and analyzing current hot topics.

  3. Social Signals Whether people are talking about your brand on social media, and whether reviews are positive or negative — those organic conversations and that buzz are key signals AI uses to judge your brand’s “cultural relevance” and reputation.

    • How? Run creative PR campaigns — like the famous “Best Job in the World” hiring stunt, or publish data reports based on proprietary data. Both spread virally on social media almost effortlessly.

In short, you need to go from being a “quietly build the website” operator to a “network and relationships” brand PR person. You need a system that continuously builds your brand’s credibility and authority on third-party platforms.

How to Make AI Fall in Love with Your Content?

So concretely, what can we do to make our content more likely to be picked up by AI? Carl’s deck included a super practical “LLM Seeding Playbook.” Here’s the gist:

1. Write More “Best of” Lists and Comparison Reviews

AI models love structured, comparative data. Articles like “Brand A vs. Brand B” or “Top 10 X for Y” directly answer users’ comparison and choice questions — they’re “algorithmic gold” in AI’s eyes.

Example: If you sell outdoor tents, write a “Top 10 Best Tents for Family Camping in 2025” or “The North Face vs. Marmot: Which Tent is Better for Extreme Weather?”

2. Organize Content in FAQ Format

Turn your subheadings directly into the questions users ask (e.g., using H2 tags). This Q&A format mirrors how AI models are trained, so AI can grab it as an answer with zero effort.

Example: Add an FAQ section under your product pages:

  • <h2>How to clean your waterproof jacket?</h2>
  • <h2>What is the difference between Gore-Tex and eVent fabric?</h2>

3. Write “Answer-First”

Open every paragraph with a single sentence that gives the core conclusion or answer, then expand on it. That way AI can easily lift your first sentence as a ready-made “answer quote.”

4. Focus on Topical Content Blocks

Break long-form content into small sections, each with a clear subheading and focused on one narrow subtopic. That lets AI extract a specific “content block” to answer a specific user question.

The Pro Move: Context-Rich Brand Mentions

This is the professional-level play Carl shared, and in my opinion, the most valuable one.

The goal: when your brand gets mentioned, give AI enough context to understand “who you are” and “what you do.”

Look at these examples and feel the difference:

Good Better
“A study by GoCompare found…” “A study by GoCompare, the car insurance comparison site, found…”
“…said [Name] from Flash Pack.” “…said [Name], at Flash Pack, a travel company specialising in solo adventures”
“Dr. Jane Smith from SkinLab said…” “Dr. Jane Smith, dermatologist at SkinLab, a clinic specialising in acne treatments, said…”

See the pattern? A good brand mention doesn’t just tell AI “who I am” — it tells AI “what I do and what my area of expertise is.”

When lots of these “context-rich brand mentions” accumulate across the web, AI forms a clear, three-dimensional picture of your brand. It learns that GoCompare is the authority in “car insurance comparison,” and Flash Pack is the expert in “solo adventure travel.”

Next time a user asks a related question, AI will naturally cite your content and brand first.

Neo’s Take

Carl’s talk is essentially telling us a harsh truth: in the AI era, the logic of traffic is being rebuilt.

In the past, we had a “traffic mindset” — the core play was interception, finding ways to “lure” users from Google to our own sites. Going forward, we have to shift to a “brand mindset” — the core play is seeding, building your brand’s professional image and authority across the entire internet.

Your goal is no longer to make users “see” your link — it’s to make AI “understand” your brand.

For many of us independent site sellers who are used to “buying traffic and chasing rankings,” this is a huge challenge — but it’s also a huge opportunity.

Whoever completes this mindset shift first will get a head start in the search wars of the next decade.

Let’s keep pushing.

References:

  • Carl J. Borg’s presentation at the Shenzhen SEO Conference: “Future-Proof Your Brand: Digital PR Tactics To Win on Google and LLM Search Results”